Blood - (don't get) hit and expertise

[Charo]

You can simulate, you can plot points on a graph, you can spew all the math formulas in the world, they do not change the fact that I've had some very unlucky avoidance streaks when it comes to landing a strike that I desperately need to land in a timely fashion. What is the value in not spending 5 GCDs to land one Death Strike? How uncommon are these streaks? How much extra damage am I taking by not being able to apply Blood Shield to myself, how much health have I failed to heal by not landing Death Strike within the 5 seconds of taking a big hit?

Am I supposed to just ignore these questions and leave it up to my healers? Am I supposed to just ignore the fact that I am draining more of their mana by not being able to use my class abilities to reduce and heal damage because your math shows that I'm clearly wrong and will be taking more damage over the course of a fight by relying on one RNG (avoidance) over another (but capable) RNG that allows me to apply a bubble that has a 100% chance to reduce the next hit?

Where does magical damage come into this? Avoidance and Blood Shield both don't help, but the heals from Death Strike do. What am I supposed to do about magical damage? Ignore it? Hope I have AMS up every time a boss shoots a fireball at me?

Am I preaching to uninformed people that avoiding hit/expertise as if it's the gospel of Death Knight tanking as you did in your original, fear mongering post (Fox News style!)? Nope.

So go ahead, lay them math formulas on me, show me some graphs, link me to some combat logs... RNG is RNG. It goes both ways.

[Hellforge]

i have 195k hp raid buff
12 exp (i dont know how to reduce it any further)
1% hit (Draenei racial)
19% parry
11% dodge
120% blood shield

i tanked up to cho gall with little to no problems on surviving
so do you feel i need hit and exp?
Real experience > theorycrafting

If you still talking about how much i will or i have missed my deathstrike etc?
1:9
1 missed
9 hit

we're not haste/dps class
our miss rate isnt affected as greatly as dw frost will
when you hit 1000times in a minute
compare to hitting 10 times in a minute, the number of misses you will notice in the 1000 times will be alot significant of course

its like you will be experiencing "omg i missed like 50% of the time with 1% hit in dw!!!"
and
"omg i missed like 7% of the time with 1% hit in blood tank!"



if you are dying because you missed 1-2 deathstrikes
your tanking has problem
either that or your healer not doing his/her job

[Drunkenvalley]

It can certainly happen, and I've seen it happen. That's what we have so many tools for otherwise though. Our mastery is not the only tool for survival, but it's certainly the biggest.

But how common missing a window is? Let's see probability. I'm going to assume the tank has a few points of expertise and/or hit no matter what he does, leaving him with 23% chance to not connect his death strike.

Chance of missing once:
23/100^1 = 23%
Twice:
23/100^2 = 5.29%
Thrice:
23/100^3 = 1.2167%
Four times:
23/100^4 = .0279841%

I'd like to discuss stuff like this more, but I really can't. I need to write another job application. e.e

Also!

Am I supposed to just ignore these questions and leave it up to my healers? Am I supposed to just ignore the fact that I am draining more of their mana by not being able to use my class abilities to reduce and heal damage because your math shows that I'm clearly wrong and will be taking more damage over the course of a fight by relying on one RNG (avoidance) over another (but capable) RNG that allows me to apply a bubble that has a 100% chance to reduce the next hit?

Yes. If you want to. Twist and turn it all you like. Antagonize one RNG as more disastrous than another, but you're going to be a yoyo on your health no matter how you gear.

That's a DK for you after all. We're not exactly known to be very smooth and consistent.

[Zao]

/snip

So there really is no point in arguing with you? We're just the bad guys for not trusting your gut and instead relying on numbers?

Your question has popped up in this thread since page one. In fact it's the main reason this thread was created.

And to answer it again: Yes Expertise and hit DO have a survival value. It's just lower than Mastery, avoidance and even haste.

And yes, you can die from a missed DS in a bad situation. You can also die from taking too much damage and your healer not having enough mana to cast that single flash heal that would've saved your life. But the latter is less obvious since you can blame it on the healer.

WotN was created for the sole reason of giving us a buffer against those situations. It's a free heal and damage reduction every 45 seconds. If you're dipping low enough often enough to trigger it several times in a row, you've got some other problems that should be taken care of first.

Oh, and since I like them numbers:
The chance to miss 3 DS in a row (ie ~5 seconds) with a 20% chance of missing/being parried/dodge is 0,8%.
But that can even happen if your hit and expertise softcapped. So with your reasoning you should also go for the expertise harcap to eliminate any chance of your DS failing to connect.

[Deleted]

WotN was created for the sole reason of giving us a buffer against those situations. It's a free heal and damage reduction every 45 seconds. If you're dipping low enough often enough to trigger it several times in a row, you've got some other problems that should be taken care of first.

Agreed with this. Also, if you're health is dropping because you've missed a couple of DSs, use Lichbourne/Death Coil to heal yourself back up and help out the Healer. Death Strike isn't the only form of self-healing DKs have, we have plenty of 'Oh crap' buttons for the less than 1% chance we miss 3 Death Strikes in a row. I'm not huge on number crunching and theorycrafting myself (I let others do it for me) but for all of those points you're going to spend to get Hit capped and presumably Expertise Hard capped, you're going to miss out on a tonne of Mastery. 1% of Hit/Expertise needs 120 rating. Overall, that would be a theoretical 1% increase in your Shield.
1 Mastery needs 179 rating, which is a 6.25% increase in your Shield. Even for the extra reliability on your Death Strikes connecting, it's not worth it because you're going to be severly gimping your other survival stats and would work out as a survivability decrease overall.

[Durandro]

Only major downside to not being hit and expertised cap is that annoying situation when you miss or get dodged/parried several times on the pull, and instantly lose aggro.

Otherwise, its fine to just stack Mastery. Makes healers happier.

I definately gear for hit and expertise on my Warrior, though. Just because I like dealing decent dps while having my face kicked in.

[maxalyss]

Alas, I am agnostic atheist. .

Alas, you're a damn fool!

[OrcsRLame]

This was my initial thought as well. I am currently at 2900 mastery (1 mastery and 1 stam trinket) which is the maximum i can reforge out of my gear. Now, I could get my hit/exp values up pretty high without losing a single point of mastery. So the tradeoff is not mastery vs hit/exp. It is Avoidance vs Hit/Exp.

As to whether i prefer Avoidance or Threat, I tried both ways on numerous bosses and i came to the conclusion that even if i don't land 8 of my first 10 attacks, I am still able to build up enough aggro until MD runs out. Threat is simply not an issue (for DKs at least.. different story with other tanks), even with top10 ranked DPS. So the only question remaining is:
Is it worth to sacrifice substantial amounts of avoidance to reduce the chances of missing with DS?

Here a few points to consider:
- Not connecting with a DS does NOT use up your runes. The lack of hit/exp will usually not make you lose runes. I say usually because if your DS gets parried 3 times in a row, you will start losing runes. Lost runes = less DS = less survivability. This is not an issue.
- Having to delay your DS by 1 global cooldown will offset the 5 second period and will affect the amount healed by your DS. This in and of itself is less of an issue than you might think. The most important, above min, DS occur after big damage spikes. If you don't delay your DS for more than 3 seconds after this spike you will still get the full amount of heal even if you initially get parried. Again, missing twice in a row can make you lose out on potential heal. This alone is not an issue.
- Missing the timing of your DS can either cause overheal or - and this is crucial - a missed DS at the wrong moment can be a cause of death. A good example is Nefarian. If you you are not full HP and miss your DS after a non-AMSed crackle or breath there is a chance that you will die within less than 1 global cooldown if you do not avoid the melee attack(s). This is big for DKs since we typically have around 12k armor less than all the other tanks. We take more damage from melee hits, and we use DS after burst damage to prevent the next melee hit from potentially killing us. Let's investigate if this is a hit/exp problem.

Nefarian's Breath (HC) does 162k damage unmitigated. Lets assume 130K (20% resist). He hits me in melee for 40k damage per swing. Let's also assume I have 200k HP. Now I am at 160k HP when the breath hits me. I drop to 30k (Will of Necro is on cooldown). I use DS. If i don't hit my DS and get no heals in a 1 second window and do not avoid the next melee hit, I will die.
Hit and expertise will help me get the DS and put me out of kill range.
Dodge and Parry will help me avoid the deadly melee attack.
Either of those stats will prevent me from dying!!
I will not pull out my napkin math here to calculate the required ratings per rate of survival. But the bottom line is: The difference won't be huge. In a situation like this, you die if you don't hit your DS and don't avoid. Either avoidance OR threat stats will help you survive.
There is pretty much no realistic situation where you MUST land one DS in order to stay alive without the option to alternatively avoid a melee attack. The damage would have to be pure magic... the only thing i can think of is a crackle into Breath where you have to DS mid-breath. Or alakir's elecrocute where you have to DS an add while avoiding the Squall Line in p2. But apart from those very, very specific situations, there is no clear benefit in having HIT/EXP over Dodge/Mastery to prevent you from dying.

TL;DR
The OP is pretty much completely off and everything he "caluclated" is irrelevant since the trade-off is not hit/exp vs mastery, but the trade-off is hit/exp vs dodge/parry. His conclusion however (to stay away from threat stats) is something that I (and most other DK Tanks) can agree with although for different reasons (explained in my post) than OP.

Sidenote: An argument can be made to retain moderate levels of threat stats to prevent parry-streaks (which will, as pointed out, make you lose runes or miss your DS timings completely). Also, as of 4.1, expertise until the softcap is strictly superior to hit.

PS: I am 10/13 HC in 10man, 369 ilvl.

In this situation I would not even touch my deathstrike button. I would lichborn/DC heal, or death pact. Or I would have already used IBF to prevent myself from getting in that situation in the first place.

If all of those were on CD, instead of praying to the RNG gods I would be screaming on vent for an outside CD. Guardian spirit > possible RNG death.

[Drunkenvalley]

Alas, you're a damn fool!

...Sorry, what?

[Big Baz]

It does apply to all tanks, with Vengeance as it is, you really don't need to do ANYTHING for hit or exp, just focus on mastery/avoidance. See so many tanks gearing in to hit/exp and having a go at others who don't, drives me mad. Good post!

[Newti]

In this situation I would not even touch my deathstrike button. I would lichborn/DC heal, or death pact. Or I would have already used IBF to prevent myself from getting in that situation in the first place.

If all of those were on CD, instead of praying to the RNG gods I would be screaming on vent for an outside CD. Guardian spirit > possible RNG death.

This thread is not about DK CD usage. Obviously it is best to not get into such a situation. However, this thread is about comparing threat stats to avoidance (and maybe mastery). My post should show you how avoidance copmares in situations where you think you need hit to avoid missing a DS and not it was not about shouting to your healers to save your butt.
Also pretty much all DK CDs are off the global cooldown except DC of course. So you can DS AND Death Pact at the same time.

[Bobbojonno]

You can simulate, you can plot points on a graph, you can spew all the math formulas in the world, they do not change the fact that I've had some very unlucky avoidance streaks when it comes to landing a strike that I desperately need to land in a timely fashion. What is the value in not spending 5 GCDs to land one Death Strike? How uncommon are these streaks? How much extra damage am I taking by not being able to apply Blood Shield to myself, how much health have I failed to heal by not landing Death Strike within the 5 seconds of taking a big hit?

Am I supposed to just ignore these questions and leave it up to my healers? Am I supposed to just ignore the fact that I am draining more of their mana by not being able to use my class abilities to reduce and heal damage because your math shows that I'm clearly wrong and will be taking more damage over the course of a fight by relying on one RNG (avoidance) over another (but capable) RNG that allows me to apply a bubble that has a 100% chance to reduce the next hit?

Where does magical damage come into this? Avoidance and Blood Shield both don't help, but the heals from Death Strike do. What am I supposed to do about magical damage? Ignore it? Hope I have AMS up every time a boss shoots a fireball at me?

Am I preaching to uninformed people that avoiding hit/expertise as if it's the gospel of Death Knight tanking as you did in your original, fear mongering post (Fox News style!)? Nope.

So go ahead, lay them math formulas on me, show me some graphs, link me to some combat logs... RNG is RNG. It goes both ways.

Im afraid i aggree with this guy... Im no accountant... im not gambling or playing the odds and im not running spreadsheets... im playing a rpg game with a character and i believe running your defence on 2 RNG skills is no way to play it. a few miss with deathstrike and your avoidance not kicking in and its a wipe.

Its the difference between a solid dependable tank and 1 that can be awesome or shit depending on how the numbers fall. Losing 3% avoidance is not all your making it out to be.

There is value in both options or this thread would not have gone on for long... so lets just aggree there is more than 1 way to do it.

[Avatar Killer]

You can simulate, you can plot points on a graph, you can spew all the math formulas in the world, they do not change the fact that I've had some very unlucky avoidance streaks when it comes to landing a strike that I desperately need to land in a timely fashion. What is the value in not spending 5 GCDs to land one Death Strike? How uncommon are these streaks? How much extra damage am I taking by not being able to apply Blood Shield to myself, how much health have I failed to heal by not landing Death Strike within the 5 seconds of taking a big hit?

Am I supposed to just ignore these questions and leave it up to my healers? Am I supposed to just ignore the fact that I am draining more of their mana by not being able to use my class abilities to reduce and heal damage because your math shows that I'm clearly wrong and will be taking more damage over the course of a fight by relying on one RNG (avoidance) over another (but capable) RNG that allows me to apply a bubble that has a 100% chance to reduce the next hit?

Where does magical damage come into this? Avoidance and Blood Shield both don't help, but the heals from Death Strike do. What am I supposed to do about magical damage? Ignore it? Hope I have AMS up every time a boss shoots a fireball at me?

Am I preaching to uninformed people that avoiding hit/expertise as if it's the gospel of Death Knight tanking as you did in your original, fear mongering post (Fox News style!)? Nope.

So go ahead, lay them math formulas on me, show me some graphs, link me to some combat logs... RNG is RNG. It goes both ways.

you're also completely missing the fact that you cannot death strike every single time you want to but at ANY time the boss melee's you you have that possibility to avoid it. But if you think you can DS just whenever you want at any given time and are just ignoring the entire rest of the posts on this thread proving you are obviously avoiding the plain and simple facts then by all means stack hit/expertise to the caps and YOU die faster than the rest of us and then try to say "Death strike is too nerfed please buff my healing because i just cant see the obvious benefits of stacking better stats"

its ok we understand.

[SurrealNight]

When it comes down to it, not getting parried every other melee strike and quality of life (when it comes to actually playing your toon vs. theory crafting) is loads better at the cost of 3% avoidance.

Giving up 3% avoidance is absolute insanity, no amount of expertise is worth that. Why don't you just not use Swordshattering if 3-4% is such a trivial number?

The chance to miss 3 DS in a row (ie ~5 seconds) with a 20% chance of missing/being parried/dodge is 0,8%.

As others have already pointed out, the chance of missing 3+ DS in a row is ridiculously small. Why would you take 3% more hits from a boss to eliminate something that happens every 0.8% DS's?